Tip 439: Send Multiple Meeting Requests

A frequent request in the Microsoft newsgroups is from users looking for a way to send out meeting requests for training sessions or benefits meetings with HR, where each employee can pick the session that fits their schedule. The selected meeting date needs to be added to the recipients calendar and the senders copy needs to have a list of the attendees.

I want to include a calendar invite in an email. When the individual clicks on the invite, it will populate in their calendar. The email is going to include two possible dates, and by clicking on the invite, it will go into their calendar for that date.

Unfortunately Outlook doesn’t have the capability for creating this type of meeting request, but you can do nearly the same thing by creating the meetings in the calendar, then send the invitees a message with each of the ICS files attached and instructions to choose the meeting they want to attend.

Create appointments or meeting requests for the desired dates. Insert these as attachments in an email. Alternately you can save them to your hard drive and upload them to a website then insert hyperlinks to the attachments, instructing the recipient to click on the link for the date that best suits him.

If you send appointment forms, the recipient will need to click Save and Close to add it to his calendar. For meeting requests, he'll need to accept the meeting request to add it to his calendar.

Create the meeting invitations and invite yourself and click Send.
Open each item on your calendar select File, Save as.
Save each item as an ICs on the hard drive.
Create the email message and attach the ICS files.
When the recipients accept the meeting request, they’ll send a response and the meeting is added to their calendar.
The sender’s copy will update with the recipient’s name as an optional attendee.

To avoid confusion, use the meeting date in the subject so the recipient only has to open the meeting they plan to attend.

Published August 22, 2007. Last updated on May 21, 2013.